Davis robotics team dominates San Jose tournament

Citrus Circuits, the Davis high school robotics team, has continued its winning ways just one week into the school year.

The team — officially known as Team 1678 — took first place over the weekend at the off-season Chezy Champs Robotics Tournament held at Bellarmine High School in San Jose.

Participants include students in grades 9-12 from all Davis high schools and junior highs.

Citrus Circuits finished the qualification rounds in first place among the 38 teams that came from California, Texas and Washington to participate in the event.

In the first game of the finals round, the Davis team’s alliance won 310 points to 270 points, in what the judges said was one of the closest games they had ever seen. The winning alliance was composed of Citrus Circuits, World Champion Team 254 Cheesy Poufs (who hosted the event at Bellarmine) and Team 973 Greybots from San Luis Obispo.

In the second game of the finals, the Davis alliance beat the opposing alliance by 126 points to go undefeated through the elimination matches and take home the Chezy Champs trophy.

In addition to winning the tournament, Citrus Circuits also was awarded the Professionalism Award for helping to repair other teams’ robots during the event and for their exceptional outreach programs to their community.

This outreach includes hosting a camp promoting STEM for women at UC Davis, creating a mobile application that helps Davis police officers find homeless shelters with open beds and helping new robotics teams of all ages to start in Davis and Woodland.

Citrus Circuits is composed of students from Davis High School, Da Vinci Charter Academy and Harper, Emerson and Holmes junior high schools, as well as Davis School for Independent Study.

The team, now based at Davis High, is coached by DHS teacher Steve Harvey and mentored by team alumni, parents and college students. Learn more about the team at www.citruscircuits.org.